To Grandma’s House We Go

October 6, 2015

Tomorrow’s Sleeper Ave. story is a bit of a change. It’s a subject I found impossible to illustrate to my satisfaction. I just couldn’t find a way to make the drawings convey the sense of the moment. In the hands of a more accomplished artist it might have been possible, but I can only work with the tools I have. So, it’s a story in words, not pictures.

I think I spent almost as much time at my grandmother’s house as I did in my own home when I was growing up. It was the center of our family’s life, at least until my grandfather passed away when I was eight years old. Even after that, Grandma Schaevitz, my mother’s mother, continued to embrace her role as the matriarch of the family. She was an amazing woman, as kind and loving as any grandma could be, and as iron-willed as any drill sergeant.

When Grandpa was still alive, he surrounded himself with friends from the Jewish community, most of them immigrants like himself who spoke hilariously fractured English in heavy East European accents.

Those old men shared more than their common language (Yiddish) and the immigrant experience.

Tomorrow’s tale is about my first encounter with what they had left behind.

Thoughts, comments or questions about this story? Send me a note here, or via email at ed@sleeperave.com. I publish my favorite comments weekly on my blog.

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